Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Wind farms are only a blight in the eye of the beholder. For others they are a source of clean renewable energy. The fact that they are not spinning 24/7 is immaterial, when they do spin they feed some energy into the grid and that offsets some coal being burnt elsewhere. It's not the solution to long term energy needs, but it's part of an evolving solution.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

These statements aren't contradictory. I accept that they may be a source of clean renewable energy (depending on the whole life cost of forging them and trucking them) while still thinking them a blight. Similarly, an oil refinery is a blight on the landscape but a necessary source of power (one that looks a lot like a windfarm).

The issue here is whether or not the environmental cost of the windfarm is justified by the power produced; I suggest that a nuclear power plant is less of a blight than the number of windmills needed to generate an equivelent amount of power. Nuclear plants, and oil refineries, can be tucked away, in immediate proximity they're ugly though I'd say no more so than wind farms. Wind farms need to be everywhere, there'd be no escaping them, they'd be like wiring in Canada.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Pity our childrens childrens children can't come back and thank you for your thoughtfulness.

the waste from the nuclear industry is dangerous, the facilities themselves are dangerous, god forbid a Chernoble happens again.

Its not just the rods that need handling after they are spent, there's a lot of dangerous waste by-product, including all the water used to cool them.

I'm simply baffled by anyone championing the use of nuclear.

I remember driving through the Sellafield site, seeing the mounds of earth around the site, wondering whats buried under there.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

My cousin lives less than half a mile from one in Swaffham. They have had no problems from it. It is just the one though and smaller than the three proposed for here.

It was curious that at the meeting the main objectors were no locals, curious in that I would have expected more seasoned objectors to be better informed and more coherent.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I've worked at the three nuclear stations in Ontario. I think them badly run and probably unsafe. I think the Canadian nuclear industry is disreputable in selling the same reactors around the world but with the safety features removed to cut costs. I think it alarming that there's no proper plan for spent fuel rod disposal. Nuclear is not unequivacably the ideal option. However, it generates power to run the country, the alternative is coal, not wind. It's less bad than coal.

Wind farms are, at best, an adjunct. To my mind they're too polluting for a peripheral power source.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Power generation is always an interesting debate.

Back in my home town they turn an existing garbage incinerator into a electricity producing garbage incinerator and people screamed bloody murder about what a horror this was!

Unfortunately this is the way that we should see ourselves moving forward we have tons of environmentally damaging systems in our world today and most of these can somehow be 'retrofitted' to produce energy. The sewer systems could theoretically be turned into a good source of power and I believe that it has been done in other parts of the world.

If we choose to look around our cities and look for things that we are doing anyway we can adapt some of these processes to produce energy for ourselves but people don't see efficiency as sustainabilty, as DBD is suggesting. People would rather dig up and produce a new crappy inefficient wind turbine than possibly harvesting an additional supply of electricity on things that we already have.

A lot of people believe that Hydro is an environmentally friendly source of power but in fact it is probably the most damaging in terms of the eco-system, re-routing river systems like that destroys the natural order of the local environment but it is true once the damage has been done it doesn't produce the 'carbon footprint' of gas/oil.

There truly isn't a right answer to the power debate but I believe wind farms are sprouting to appease the masses whilst the real solutions are developed further.

Also in regards to the health complaints and the radar thing, these are absolutely possible through oscillation and/or the doppler affect.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Why do you keep saying they are polluting (in the manufacture?)?

Have you taken any action on the dodgy Ontario power stations? Made any reports or written to an MP? If it's as you say, that's very alarming indeed.

Finally, the Daily Telegraph's topical take on unsightly wind farms (similar story to that Peter posted from the DM):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ear...st-claims.html

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

No, visually. I don't think anyone would hesitate to call an oil refinery, a structure similar to a wind farm, visual pollution. I expect they're polluting in the manufacture, as you say, and certainly they are in the distribution, the same is true for nuclear, of course, but a power station will run for decades.

Good grief, no. I don't think anyone expects anything different, the industry's a QUANGO famous for corruption and inefficiency.

I think they're trying to paint him, perhaps accurately, as a NIMBY. It's a bit of a cheat in that regard that they're used a picture of clean new windmills, presumably they've been photoshopped to that white colour. Real windmills, here at least, are grey and streaked with rust (or whatever the material they're made of turns to after a couple of years in the wind and rain).

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

They're all painted white here and look quite smart. We do things properly in the UK!

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I don't mind saying I wouldn't want one backing onto my property, whatever colour they were painted.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Good thread.....

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/for...owtopic=187259

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I haven't read the entire thread posted, but I do remember reading a BBC report about this the other day. Wasn't foul play suspected? The turbine was designed to be able to withstand winds of up to 160 but winds on that day were only 60. Lots of the securing bolts had been removed.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Probably those damn bats.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Bats doing DIY, now that I would pay to see :rofl:

Whatever next bats driving cars:)

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

They look pretty, and politicians love them. But you need A LOT of them to make any difference, AND they are an environmental hazard.

Maglev turbines however...